JAKE LERMAN
 ART DIRECTION
& DESIGN


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JAKE MANZI
WHATEVER MY HEART ALLOWS


CD • ANIMATION • PROMO ︎ FOR JAKE MANZI
01. 2020 ︎ 10. 2020

Jake Manzi is a Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter who’s powerful debut album listens like a honest meditation on what it means to let yourself love, even when you’re afraid. Featuring contributions from industry luminaries Don Was, Griffin & Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Madison Cunningham, and Mikaela Davis the campaign needed a visual language as potent as the songs themselves.
Taking inspiration from the geometry in the striking cover photo, our challenge was to create a sens of space, and minimalism without compromising the warmth so present on the record.


Art Direction & Design: Jake Lerman


︎︎︎ CD PACAKGE
Referencing the economical 1-color print limitations of early folk releases, we maintained an elegance in our stylist approach and typographic hierarchy without succumbing to nostalgia. 
Introducing the bare geometric form on the disc label alludes to the single cover lead-up we rolled out for promotional campaign. 



STREAMING SINGLES
Finding a way to channel the strength of the physical package into a series of promotional singles which would only live on streaming platforms was a challenge. 
We found by incorporating a material texture we were able to get the stiff geometry which read so beautifully on the physical disc to breathe a bit more organically when viewed on a screen.







FRAME BY FRAME ANIMATION
The most experimental and labor intensive part of this campaign was a hand illustrated lyric video for the lead single “How Long This Time”. Painstakingly illustrated frame-by-frame the video brings alive motifs from the song as they morph from abstract clouds of tone into surrealist transmutations of roses, dune-scapes and roadways. 
As the hand lettered lyrics bloom and dissolve throughout the video the muted sepia washed over you and elevates the color-way established in the album packaging to a richer more nuanced height. 




︎︎︎ MERCHANDISE
The songs on this album are rendered beautifully and recorded expertly in their final form. But, of course, nothing beats a live performance.
Despite the pandemic, we produced a couple T-Shirt designs and an AD Mat to help concertgoers get the full experience of these fantastic songs.